


Isle of Misfit Toys

by sparrowshellcat



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:18:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years ago, Logan stared up at a man he didn't recognize, but when the stranger offered his hand, he took it, and let him save him. And when a blindfolded teenager stumbled upon them as they were going to their plane, they took him with them. One teenaged boy who couldn't open his eyes, who wove himself between the two of them, binding them all together into something none of them could have predicted. One by one, they start collecting others, like them, building themselves a little bubble of safety in an angry world. But something is about to change that.</p><p>The dam was breaking. And when that dam fell, everything that they had managed to build in the last fifteen years would go with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isle of Misfit Toys

**Author's Note:**

> Written for X-Men Big Bang 2011.
> 
> X-Men and all its related characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission.
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

It was snowing.

Cupping the flickering little flame of his lighter so that he could light up his cigarette, Remy LeBeau considered the way the snow fell lightly onto the already snowy landscape, obscuring the shapes of the cars, the trees. It seemed to create a scene that was melting, all soft around the edges.

Drawing in a deep lungful of smoke, he leaned back against the corrugated steel walls of the bar. Remy tracked the progress of one of the transport trucks coming into the slushy parking lot with his eyes.

It parked, and when the passenger door opened, a slightly slip of a girl tumbled out, clutching at a bag as large as her.

The moment her feet hit the ground, he felt it.

Potential kinetic energy arched temptingly through the ground, trembling through the soles of his feet and whispering of dark, wonderful possibilities. Every footstep she took was a fizzing pop of sound and colour on the palette of the world that was kinetic energy, so unlike the dull, clumsy steps of everyone else.

He watched, out of the corner of his eyes, as she stumbled into the bar. A few moments after she was gone, he pushed himself off of the wall, and slid languidly into the bar, moving like an alley-born-and-bred tom cat, slipping smooth and unseen between strangers.

And just like that tomcat, he gleaned their pockets, sliding their wallets soundlessly into his own.

Had to keep skills sharp, after all.

Noting where she'd sat at the bar, and noting the wary look the bartender gave her before moving the tip jar away from her, Remy headed to the end of the bar, taking in another long drag of smoke – he'd gone outside to wait for that kinetic powerhouse to arrive, not because smoking was prohibitted inside – and leaned on the bar beside his companion. “Remy has found an interestin' l'il treat now, he has.”

“Have you now?” Lean fingers snaked the cigarette from the Cajun's grip, then the younger man crushed it out on the bar. “Stop blowing smoke in my eyes, Remy.”

“Oh, _cher_ , you love it.” He smirked, but he did breathe out the cloud of smoke away from the other, this time.

“So what did you find?” He asked.

Remy reached out to brush his fingers over the top of the black leather blindfold that covered the other's eyes. He just smirked faintly when the other man jerked his head back, out of his way. It wasn't new, but he still didn't have to like it. “Remy found a pretty l'il girl with some pretty l'il gifts.”

“Do I look like I care how _pretty_ she is?” He smirked sardonically, tapping the blindfold.

“ _La petite_ smelled pretty?” He smriked.

“Much better.” Scott Summers was a man embittered by time, but those harsh edges had been softened, somewhat. He leaned against Remy's shoulder slightly, smirking faintly, and said quietly, “Did she smell pretty enough to take home?”

“ _Oui, cher_.”

“Then I suppose we ought to get going before someone else decides to take her home.” Scott rose, flicking his cane out, unfolding it with a practised ease. He didn't need it nearly as much as the blindfold led pretty much everyone to believe, but like he liked to say, he wasn't no Daredevil, either. But he also didn't complain when Remy looped his arm through his, and headed towards the real activity of the bar.

There was a cage. It was just made of a chain link fence, and it was no UFC Octagon, but it still gave the men and occasional woman there what they wanted – sweat and blood and violence.

“How much is he whipping his ass by?” Scott smirked, brow arching over his blinders.

“S'a massacre, _cher_ ,” Remy smirked.

“Good.”

Two men were in the ring, and though one was easily a foot and a half taller than the other, he was still the one that was thrown against the chain link walls a moment later, crying out in pain, expression twisted into a grimace of agony. It was artistic, almost, in a sort of savage way, a violent homage to the briefness of existence.

But then the shorter man grabbed the other's shirt to pull him back and slammed his fist into his face, shattering his nose, and it was just a bloody fight for money again.

Scott cringed slightly at the sound of breaking bone. “That sounded unpleasant.”

“Fairly sure it was, _cher_.”

Someone rang the bell that hung over the low door of the cage, and half of the crowd cried out in victory, while the other half howled its disappointment. As the taller opponent was carried out by his friends, Scott reached up to slam his palm against the fence. “Logan!”

Turning his head to spit bloody saliva on the floor, Logan walked, with the swagger of an equestrian, over to the fence. Tangling his fingers in the links, he leaned over, considering them both. “Believable?”

“Remy near feared for yer life, _cher_.”

“Bullshit,” he smirked, but brushed his knuckles across Scott's fingers, where he'd curled them in the fence. “We made enough?”

“Remy finally decided to tell us why we just _had_ to come here,” Scott smirked, tilting his head, slightly, like he was glancing over at the Cajun. “Seems he noticed some tremors coming.... he found himself a pretty girl.”

“Girl this time?” Logan smirked. “What, were gettin' sick of the Lost Boys?”

“Stop calling us that,” the youngest of the three huffed.

“Remy just thinks the Island o' Misfit Toys needs a doll, _le petit cher_ ,” He smirked, running his hand down the back of Scott's neck and down his spine to his lower back, where he left it resting. “'Sides, Remy is sure that the little flower must be a level four pretty, easy.”

The man in the cage hesitated. “Well. That _does_ change things.”

“You see now what Remy be talkin' 'bout, yes?”

“But then the next issue is... how do we get her to come?” Scott asked, frowning. “It's not as though we're in a situation that we can rescue her from, like it was last time, and this isn't exactly a government facility from which anyone would be willing to do anything to get out of...”

“....'ow 'bout 'show me yours, I'll show you mine'?” Remy asked, cheekily.

Scott smacked his shoulder.

“You'll think of somethin'.” Logan leaned back, stretching, cracking his shoulders. “I got another opponent wantin' to take on the victor.”

“Be careful,” Scott ordered.

“Yes, ma'am.” He smirked, then laughed when Scott let out a squawk of protest.

Officially, by six am, when the bar owner finally got his shit together enough to count up the winnings and gave Logan his cut, the bar was closed. Most everyone was gone, and the only ones left were the kind that likely didn't have much of a home to be leaving for. Besides, it wasn't much of a normal _bar_ , really, more of an illegal operation set up in someone's old barn that got left alone because the cops themselves wanted to make bets on the fights. Still, Logan flicked through the stack of bills – green, pink, even a few browns – with his thumb, then shoved them in his pocket. 

“C'ming back for more tomorrow?” The bartender asked, hopeful. Logan had made him good money.

“Naw... don't like to stay long in one place.” He shrugged with one shoulder, then headed towards the pair of men sitting together at the bar, lighting a cigar as he walked.

She was sitting at a little table in a dark corner. Even without the others pointing her out, he could smell the fear, the spice that said 'pretty'.

And he didn't mean her looks.

....who the hell had come up with their code words, anyway? Oh right, Remy. Well, that explained everything, didn't it?

He dropped a heavy hand on each of the men's shoulders, squeezing slightly. “Ready?”

It was Remy who pulled his arm, jerking him forward, just off-setting his balance slightly – enough that the baseball bat that had been about to crack down on his shoulder hit the table instead. It wouldn't have caused any major damage, but the sentiment was nice, anyway. It was Scott that snapped his adamantium walking stick out to its full length, and shoved it into Remy's hands – after all, it _did_ belong to the other man.

Logan spun to face his aggressor, fists balled.

It was the idiot from before, the one he'd so utterly thrashed in the cage, nose taped and bandaged. His face was purple and angry, bolder now that he had a weapon, than he had been, unarmed, in the bar.

“You cheated,” the man snarled. 

“Oh come on.” Scott snapped. “Even a blind man could tell you you lost because he was better than you.”

“Shut up!” The man roared, fuelled by rage and alcohol, and swung the bat at Scott.

This was, naturally, a very bad idea.

Remy bolted up to his feet, eyes literally flaring behind his sunglasses, but Logan's claws were already slashing at that bat, faster than the human eye could see, cutting the weapon into even chunks, making the now-very-short bat whistle harmlessly past the younger man's head. The Cajun's hands hit those aluminium fragments, then flung them back at the attacker – where they exploded in his face, against his chest, throwing him back and away.

“I get the distinct impression that something very impressive just happened,” Scott muttered.

No one ever messed with Scott Summers twice. Remy LeBeau and James Logan had made sure of that since 1985.

“What kind of freaks are you?!” Someone howled, voice cracking like a little boy's.

“Did he getcha, _cher_?” Remy ignored the panicked voice, crouching between Scott's knees, resting his palms on the other's thighs.

“Stop treating me like a damsel in distress, Remy,” Scott grumbled, and swatted at his hands.

“You _are_ our damsel in - “ Logan started.

The cocking of a shotgun, the distinctive click-clack, cut him off short, and he turned slowly, even as Remy and Scott slowly rose to their feet. The bartender was holding the double-barrelled weapon with shaking hands, and said, in as firm of a voice as he could manage, “Get the hell outta my bar. I dunno what you are and I don't care, but get the _hell_ outta my bar.”

“Relax, old man.” Logan growled. “We're leavin'.”

“Thank you,” he said, probably by reflex. It wasn't really the sort of situation where you thanked someone. It could just be the amount he was shaken up – he was trembling, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Scott slid his arm into Logan's, though whether it was because he needed guidance, or because he was trying to hold the other back was less clear.

That trembling shotgun was held vaguely on the three of them as they left the bar, until Remy abruptly stopped near the doors of the bar, smirking as he lifted his sunglasses, exposing black and red eyes that seemed to glow faintly in the darkness. Addressing the shadows, he said, “Comin' with Remy and his boys, _la petite cherie_?”

The girl he'd been watching earlier slid slowly out of the deepest shadows, hood up and hiding her face, clutching her bag. But she did fall into step beside the men, quickly, flushed.

“This the pretty?” Scott murmured under his breath.

Logan looked the form, swaddled in a dark coat that obscured nearly everything, up and down, nostrils flaring. “Smells like the pretty.”

“Good.”

\---

The dam was breaking.

 

That was the only reason he was even entertaining the thought of considering this man, this _stranger’s_ offer, because if they didn’t get out of here, and didn’t do it quickly, there was a good chance that the others, at least, weren’t going to get out of here.

 

But the dam was breaking.

 

Maybe, in retrospect, this had been the wrong place to set up their little camp, but at the time, he’d wanted answers, and this had seemed like the most likely place for him to be  _able_  to get those answers. Besides, what was it they said, that hindsight was twenty twenty? Sure,  _now_  it seemed like a stupid idea to set up their home on the shores of Lake Alkili, but he’d wanted those answers.

 

The water was spilling over the top of the causeway, now, running down into the valley in ever widening rivulets. If he didn’t make this decision now, he wasn’t going to able to make it.

 

But of course it just couldn’t be that easy, could it?

 

\---

“What's wrong with him?”

Remy glanced up from the fire, looking at the scruffy teenager. He wore a leather and fleece thing that covered half of his face. He wished he could see the eyes under that blindfold. Remy felt out of his depths when he didn't have that fail-safe of hypnotism to fall back on. It was unnerving. Scott looked like he hadn't bathed in weeks, his hair was hanging lanky and greasy in his face, and sweat and dirt created a gritty sheen on his smooth jaw. Remy wasn't really sure he wanted to consider exactly how long it had been since the kid had been granted access to a shower. “Whatcha mean, _petit_?”

Scott jerked his chin forward, motioning to the man in the corner. “What's wrong with him?”

Hesitating at that question, Remy glanced at Logan.

The man seemed hunched in on himself, sort of like he was trying to avoid being hurt again. The wounds on his forehead, the ones Remy had seen as he'd found Logan, what, twelve hours ago? Twenty four, maybe? had long since healed, and Remy could no longer see the holes in the metal that encased the other man's skull. But whatever those wounds had _done_ to Logan hadn't been fixed. Even now, his eyes looked distant and unfocused, like he wasn't really there, and when anyone moved near him, he shied away like a spooked animal, baring his teeth. It was as though the gruff, but charismatic in his own sort of animalistic way, man he'd met a month before had been stripped away, replacing him with a wounded, abused, beaten and broken stray animal man. Like a pet shoved in a cardboard box and left to die on the side of some rural road somewhere.

“Remy does not know, _petit_ ,” he said, at last.

Scott frowned, head turned towards Logan as though he could see him, and Remy wondered just how blind this boy really was. “He saved me.”

“Oh?”

He nodded, still blindly considering the other man. “That's what I understand, anyway. The sound of his slashing open the cages was a similar sort of sound to him, ah, attacking the plane. There aren't many sounds like that.”

“ _Oui_ , true.” Remy grumbled slightly. He hadn't been too impressed when angry Logan, panicked because of whatever had happened to him, had taken claws to the side of Remy's pilfered plane. That hurt resale value right there – and hadn't made the ride here no easier, neither. It had been hard enough to chart a route into Canada that avoided radar detection, never mind doing it with a wild man who hated flying trying to punch holes in the walls of the small plane. “...'ow long were you there?”

“Not sure,” Scott said, at last. “Few months, at least, I think. Long enough for me to lose count of days and for them to do a lot of weird experiments on my eyes.”

“Oh? Is that why yer eyes be covered, petit?”

“No... not exactly.” Scott cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly on the edge of the low cot he had made his seat. Remy could clearly see that, just under the edge of that blinder, he was flushing. “I – I think it was an accident I was in when I was a kid., actually. There's – there's something wrong with my eyes. I have to keep them closed. That's what the thing is for, I guess.”

“There is actually somethin' wrong, _cher_ , or the 'experts' tell you it's wrong?” Remy frowned, considering the boy's face intently.

“No.” He said, fervently. “There's something wrong with them.”

“Hn.”

Remy shifted the heavy cast iron pot onto the fire, properly. He'd filled it halfway with water, and deftly sliced some of the cans of food that had been sitting on the shelves of the little cabin open with the “can opener” of a handy Swiss Army knife. One by one, he dumped a can of diced potatoes, sliced mushrooms, mixed vegetables, and a tin of tuna. It was probably going to result in the most disgusting soup in the world, but at least it would be _food_.

“What are you making?” Scott asked, quietly. 

“Gumbo.” Remy smirked. “Poor man's gumbo. Very poor man's gumbo.”

“Pauper food?” He asked, lightly, shifting forward to the edge of the seat. “I think it might need some spices, perhaps, Remy.”

“Mm. Per'aps.” He stood, running his fingers through his hair, then went to dig through the cupboards again. There were more cans of food, a lot of cans of beans, a few more of potatoes, a few dozen boxes of macaroni and cheese. There were some noodles, which he grabbed a bag of to add to the pot, once it was boiling, then he discovered a few scattered jars of basic spices – and soon he tossed salt and pepper and a couple scoops of a slightly questionable looking beef bouillon into the pot. At least it should be edible, when he was done. “A fine suggestion, _petit_.”

“Hey, I can't see, I do what I can do.” He shrugged. “Do we have water?”

“Bottles.” Remy confirmed, and snatched up one of the bottles, pressing it awkwardly into the boy's hands. 

Scott fumbled with the bottle for a few moments, finally cracking off the lid, and taking a grateful swallow of it. “How many bottles do we have? I mean... how long are we going to be staying here? I am not expert, by any means, but this place doesn't really seem to be the sort of place with running water.”

“ _Oui_... plenty of snow, Remy will boil water, later, to refill them.”

“That makes sense,” he nodded, sipping at his water still, then shifted forward, off the bed, and walked slowly across the room. Remy was about to offer his help when he realized that Scott was actually walking fairly straight and evenly. He was clearly confident in his strides, it wasn't the tentative, nervous walk of someone recently blindfolded. It was the easy, remarkably even step of a boy that had gotten used to using senses other than sight. But when he realized _where_ Scott was going, he took a step forward, to stop him.

And hesitated.

Scott crouched in front of Logan, and held out the water. “Hey. C'mon, drink some water.”

Logan growled, shifting back, pressing tighter into the wall, eyes dark and feral, pupils completely blown. 

Remy was really starting to think that this teenager, as talented as he was, apparently, had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. The boy just shifted closer to the wild man, kneeling in front of him, holding the bottle carefully, and said, gently, “Logan. Come on. You're going to need some water, okay? Drink.”

Reluctantly, the man slowly took the bottle from the teenagers fingers, and took a swig.

Grinning, the teenager rocked back on his heels, then stood, turning to head back towards his bed seat. Of course, he ruined the illusion of being confident and calm a little bit by cracking his knee off the corner of the bed itself, and hissed, wincing, and sat on the bed, sheepishly. “Ow. Well, that was smooth.”

Remy snorted, amused, and settled onto the stool he had by the fire, and stirred the soup, which was slowly starting to steam. 

“...it's a good sign though, right?” Scott asked. “That he's drinking?”

He glanced at the man, considering him. Logan still didn't look quite _right_ , he was staring off into space still, twisting the bottle over and over in his fingers. But he was _moving_ , and reacting, and despite what he'd expected, he didn't actually rip the teenager into pieces. So something must have reached him. “ _Oui, petit_ , it is good that Logan is drinkin'.”

“Good.” He sighed, relieved. 

The little cabin was quiet for a few long minutes, save the crackle of the fire burning merrily in the fireplace, and the dull whistle of the wind around the corners, over the chimney. It was a sort of lulling silence, like they were being embraced slowly by the ever-smothering silence of the snow outside.

Scott broke the silence. “What's going to happen to us?”

Remy looked up, surprised. “What d'ya mean, _petit_?”

“What's going to happen to us?” He repeated, holding out his hands. “I mean, clearly this cabin isn't going to keep us forever. It's not large enough, I'm _sure_ we don't have enough supplies, and eventually whoever owns it will want it back. It's too well maintained to have been abandoned. Look, the wind isn't even making a draft. It's well taken care of. And someone will eventually figure out that you've brought and escapee from the Island and the man that busted him out over the border. If nothing else, Canada _does_ have an extradition treaty with the United States, does it not?”

“ _Oui_ , but Remy be a free agent, and _notre ami_ Logan be Canadian. Be easy 'nuff to get lost here.”

“But we didn't go very far over the border, did we?”

“ _Non_ ,” he admitted. “Remy's plane may not be able to take much more.”

“How are you at hot-wiring cars?” Scott joked, weakly.

“ _Formidable_ , _cher_.”

“...that's good, right?”

“ _Oui_ ,” he laughed.

“Well... fine. So hot-wire us a car, ditch the plane somewhere and we go somewhere where no one would think twice about a catatonic man with claws, a man that can hot-wire a car, and a man with a – a blindfold.” He hesitated, a storm of emotions tugging at the corners of his mouth. Remy usually liked to see a person's eyes. There were so many secrets one could glean from a person's eyes, and he'd always been able to just _nudge_ people the way he wanted to them to go, so long as he could make eye contact. But the mouth was also expressive, and this pretty boy's pouty lips broadcast a wealth of fears – that he was going to be left behind. Sure, he never said that. Remy doubted his pride would ever _let_ him say that. But he'd been the one left behind before. He knew that fear.

But he couldn't promise he wouldn't leave him behind.

Remy was good at leaving everything behind.

“ _Oui_ , per'aps that would be best, _petit_ , Remy does not know what the cards hold for us yet. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Scott admitted, shifting forward.

Ladling a spoonful of the soup into a mug, Remy tried to make sure the boy got plenty of the actual “meat” of it, before pressing the mug into his hands. “Eat up, _petit_. You be a growing boy, you are.”

He flushed. “I'm not that young.”

“Well, you have a solid frame to be filled out, then.” He smirked, amused, watching to make sure the teenager was able to eat. “Put some meat on them scrawney bones.”

“Very funny.” He shook his head, sipping at his cup.

Remy filled two mugs with the soup, and stood, heading over to Logan's corner. Dropping to his knees, like Scott had earlier, he offered him the mug. “C'mon, _mon ami_ , you eat like a fiend, Remy knows you gotta be hungry.”

Logan snarled, teeth bared, panic in the wild man's eyes. Fight or flight.

“C'mon, _cher_... s'food...”

The wild man struck out, then, and swearing a blue streak, Remy supposed he should be thankful that Logan had only hit the mug and splashed hot soup all over him, and hadn't struck out with claws. Most of the time he saw Logan lash out, it was with claws.

“Maybe you need some time to get real hungry.” He muttered, and headed to eat his own dinner.

It occurred to him, later, that Scott was a boy that he was going to have to pay more attention to.

Yes, he was aware of his every movement, his every kinetic possibility. Just as he could tell you that some kind of power crackled in the boy's veins and that his steps were confident and that there was a broken spring in the room's one mattress that, if given the right push, would break through the aged mattress cover, Remy could dictate every movement in the room. From the scurrying of a mouse, to the falling motes of dust, to the teenager rising to fill his mug with remarkable ease, from the pot. But just because he was aware of it didn't mean he was exactly paying attention to it, and it wasn't until Scott was kneeling in front of Logan that he even realized what exactly was happening.

Visions of Logan reacting about as patiently as he hadn't with Remy flicked through his mind, and he half rose, calling out: “ _Non, petit_ \- !”

The animal-like man he knew as James Logan hadn't sliced the teenager open. The boy wasn't sprawled out across the wooden floor with his innards spread out across the slats. He was as whole as ever, just kneeling between the other man's knees, holding the mug in his hands, carefully, holding the lip of the cup to Logan's lips. The wild man's fingers were curled around Scott's, and he was sipping at the broth, brows furrowed as he drank. 

Remy sat, slowly, on his stool, stunned.

It was a strangely... _touching_ scene. Like something out of a fucked up Norman Rockwell painting, a sweet, gentle moment that made no sense out of context, but was oddly beautiful. 

Then the moment was broken, and Logan settled back, frowning slightly.

“Still hungry?” Scott asked, softly.

Logan grunted, and stood, setting his hand on the top of the boy's head for a moment. Scott's head was tilted up towards him, as though he was trying to see him, and he waited, but Logan just nodded, and dropped his hand off his head, heading towards the door. 

“Logan...?” Remy cleared his throat, awkwardly.

“I just need some air.” He nodded, not quite meeting his eyes, and stepped outside, into the snow.

\---

The dam was breaking. 

The little boy that Remy had rescued was clinging to his neck like a drowning man in the ocean, sharp as blades little child fingernails digging into the man's eyes, panic in his eyes. Remy wasn't going to put him down, and even though the water was starting to crash over the tops of the dam, now, a waterfall in the making, he wouldn't let him drown.

“Remy!” Scott howled, standing beside that damned helicopter, waiting, hands held out, entreating.

Scott didn't trust the men waiting for them inside the helicopter, either. None of them trusted strangers, and the man with the odd helmet carried himself with the kind of power Remy remembered from his life with the Thieves Guild and the Assassin's Guild. The kind of man that assumed that what he was doing was the right thing simply because he felt he was superior, so naturally he _must_ be right. Remy didn't trust that genial smile.

But what other option did he have?

 _Remy_. The voice slipped into his mind, so softly he almost thought he had imagined it. 

_Remy LeBeau, there is always another option_.

\---

Logan was driving the ratty old camper truck, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, vaguely in time with the old Journey song playing on the radio, coming in all scratchy and static. Sitting beside him in the front passenger seat, Remy rolled a poker chip between his fingers, not paying much attention to it as it tumbled neatly, end over end, from one finger to another, light sparks flicking in the air. He was breathing the words to the song under his breath, almost singing, though while he was clearly declaring his intention to keep believing, he _was_ doing so in French. 

Scott sat slowly on the one bed in the back of the camper, trying not to spook the girl already sitting there, and smiled crookedly, offering a plastic wrapped tuna salad sandwich. “Sorry, it's not much, but...”

“Thank you,” she gasped, almost snatching it from his hands, ripping off the wrapping.

“I thought there was a good chance you hadn't eaten much in awhile.” He rested his hands on his lap, still turned towards her like he was watching her, but his head was tilted just a little too far to the left. “How long have you been on the run?”

“What makes you think I'm on the run from anythin'?” She asked, through a mouthful of sandwich, frowning.

“Because I ran once.” Scott said gently.

She flushed. “Just cause you've run before doesn't mean we've all run.”

“My name is Scott,” he said, abruptly. “Scott Summers. What's yours?”

The girl hesitated. “Marie.”

“It's very nice to meet you, Marie,” he offered his hand. She took it, reluctantly, her gloved hand in his bare palm, and he smiled as he shook her hand. “Don't worry, I don't bite.”

“You're not blind, are you?”

Scott smiled softly. “No.”

“But you can't see me. You don't even have any idea what I look like. So you don't even know if I look like a runaway.”

“No.” He agreed. “But like calls to like.”

She ripped a chunk of crust off of her sandwich, chewing on it, frowning. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Have you ever been to Alaska, Marie?”

The girl blinked at him, confused. “No. I've never been to Alaska.”

“I have,” Scott smiled, sadly. “I grew up there, in Anchorage. It's an absolutely beautiful place, Marie, I wish you'd have had the chance to see it so you would know. In the summer, it's all vivid greens, rolling fields and pure crystal water, you can pick wild blueberries off bushes right at the side of the road. In the winter, it's like the whole state has been wrapped in a huge white feather duvet, and it just hunkers in on itself and goes to sleep. It's amazing, Marie. My mother, my father, my brother and I, we were very happy there.”

She watched him, eating by reflex now, entranced in the story.

“But the more perfect and normal things are, the more things can't possibly stay that way, you know that, right?”

Marie nodded, then added, “Yeah.” quickly, when she realized he couldn't see that.

“When I was twelve, there was an accident. We were in my father's plan – he was a bush pilot, you see – and the engines... something happened. We crashed. My brother and I lived... but I got some major head trauma, and our parents – well, they... they didn't make it.”

“I'm sorry, sug',” she said, softly, flushed.

Scott smiled, tightly, and nodded. “Thank you. We were put in the foster care system, which isn't as bad as all those terrible new stories say. I had a great family. They were amazing people, really tried to help me after my parent's death and all, but... something... there... there was a terrible accident. They were killed. And it was my fault.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

“I panicked. I ran. I got picked up a couple years later, in California, and... it got worse before it got better. But eventually, I ended up with those two.” He motioned to the front of the truck. “Remy and Logan saved me.”

“...they're not... normal.” Marie said, at last. “You don't... mind?”

“Mind that they're mutants?” He asked, bluntly, just smiling softly when she flinched. “Why would I mind, Marie?”

“They're not really... human, are they?”

“Says who?” Scott laughed. “My bio teacher? Some government official? Sorry, Marie, but I think those strict definitions of 'human' and 'not human' need a little work. Sure, I guess mutants aren't _homo sapien sapien_ , I have done enough research on genetics to understand that. But anthropologists say there are over a hundred and fifty 'human relatives' in the fossil record. I think that means humans evolve. A _lot_.”

“So what, mutants are the next step in human evolution?” Marie scoffed, unimpressed.

“Exactly.” He nodded.

“Then why are mutations like a  _ curse _ ?” She demanded, sharply.

“They're all different, Marie,” he said, gently. “I wouldn't say they would be a  _ curse _ .”

“Sometimes they  _ are _ ,”she muttered, hugging herself, tightly.

“Let me tell you the rest of my story,” he said, gently, reaching out, clumsily, to set his hand on her knee. “I told you that I have caused deaths, Marie. Do you know  _ why _ I wear this blindfold?”

“No...”

“Because I am a mutant, too. Just like them... just like you.” He held up his hand, quickly, cutting off the protest she was about to make. “I told you, like calls to like. You wouldn't want to know what my opinions on whether or not I have a problem with mutants unless you had a vested interest in it. Trust me. I'm a mutant too, Marie, and I can't turn my mutation off. Remy doesn't have to charge things, Logan doesn't have to have those claws out. But I  _ can't _ turn off my mutation, it's always... it always goes. I have to wear this so that I don't... hurt people. I have to keep my eyes closed.”

“Why? What happens if you don't?” She asked, leaning towards him, frowning.

“It's hard to explain.” He smiled, softly. 

“But - “

“Is yours easy to explain?” He asked, smiling softly at the girl. “If someone said 'what is your mutation', would you find it easy to explain?”

Marie hesitated, and shook her head. “No... it's not very easy.”

“I'll try and show you later,” he smiled softly. “When we're not in a confined space, maybe.”

She nodded, quietly, sheepish. “So you're cursed too, huh?”

“I'm not cursed.” Scott smiled softly, quietly. “I could think that. My being a mutant has cost me a lot. A  _ lot _ . It lost me my parents, my foster family... I spent years on the streets... I was experimented on, you could say I was tortured. I've spent...  _ years  _ with a blindfold on, because I can't chance that I might open my eyes, and kill people again. So you could say I've been cursed. But without this... I wouldn't be the man I am, Marie, and I think I'm a pretty good man. I think I turned out pretty well, all things considered, and I wouldn't be the man I am without the terrible things that happened to me, because I'm a mutant. But you know, the same stuff could have happened to me even if I wasn't a mutant. Well, not quite the same, maybe, but... what if I was  _ really _ blind? Would I be cursed because I was blind?”

“That's different.”

“How is that different?” Scott asked, considering her. “If I was born blind, or I was born a mutant... how is that different? They're both things that just happened, that weren't my fault, that I had no cause of. It's not because I was cursed. It would just be because I was different.”

Marie picked at the slightly ratty quilt that was spread out on the bed, frowning. “...you make it sound so very logical.”

“It is sort of logical, isn't it?” He smiled.

“...so what do I do?”

“Stop running, Marie.” Scott said softly. “Just stop running.”

“But  _ how _ ?” She asked, voice cracking. “I'm  _ dangerous _ , Scott! If I hurt someone, because I stopped runnin'... they'd kill me. I  _ have _ to run.”

“Marie... you don't have to run. You find a safe place. A place with people who understand, a place with people like you, a place where you're safe. And then you stop running.”

“Where do you find a place like that, though? People hate mutants.”

“There are four of us, here, in this trailer.” He smirked slightly, amused. “There are more of us, too. We have a safe place, we have a home. You can stay with us.”

Her brows furrowed. “...with three guys?”

Scott snorted, and grinned. “Sounds kinda bad, doesn't it? I promise, it's not like a terrible Three's Company set up here, or anything, and we won't hurt you. We're really just trying to keep you, and people like you, safe. Remy calls us the Lost Boys. We're kind of a... a group of misfits, all mutants, all lost, all running scared. But there's strength in numbers. We can keep each other safe by working together.”

“What am I, Wendy?” She asked, smiling.

“Ironically, that was exactly - “

“Son of a  _ bitch _ !” Logan shouted, from the front seat, and the whole trailer twisted.

Marie cried out, throwing out her arms, trying to brace herself on the counter so that she didn't fall over when the whole vehicle twisted hard to the side. Scott fell right off of the bed itself, shoulder slamming into the cupboards under the sink, and he cried out as the vehicle veered again to the other side, slamming him back into the bed frame. 

“Hold on!” Remy hollered from the front seat, then there was the sound of shattering glass, then utter silence. 

With a sickening crunch, the trailer slammed heavily into a very large, very immoveable obstacle, and both Marie and Scott were knocked asunder again, like bowling pins knocked down, and Scott swore, struggling to sit up, wincing. “What happened?” he asked, breathlessly.

“Son of a – somethin's burnin'.” Remy said, and he swore again, then a moment later slipped into the back of the trailer, pressing one of his hands to his forehead, where blood was dripping out from under his palm. “Are you  _ deux _ all right,  _ cher _ ?”

“I am,” Scott struggled to his feet. “Where's Logan?”

“Outside.” He said, frowning. “ _ Petite _ ?”

“I'm okay,” Marie said, though her voice was too high pitched, and she looked utterly panicked.

“Why is Logan outside?” Scott demanded, leaning on the fridge, trying to steady himself. There was a bruise on his jaw, already starting to get darker. “Oh god, the idiot didn't wear his seat-belt again, did he?!”

“Ye know Logan,  _ cher _ .” Remy shrugged. “There's fire. C'mon, outside.”

Scott turned to reach for the back door, and swore when he realized that the fire Remy had mentioned was in fact behind him, and that it was the stove that had caught on fire. Tugging his hands back towards himself, he took a deep breath, and headed unsteadily towards the front of the truck. He was moving something like a drunken sailor, his usual balance thrown off because of the accident. Stumbling into Remy's chest, Scott winced, and looked up. “I'm sorry.”

“Outside,” Remy said again, and slid his arm around the younger man's waist, helping him outside. 

Marie, flushed, followed them, panting. 

And once out on the streets, she cried out, in horror. “Oh god!”

“What?” Scott spun, as though trying to see what she was crying out about. 

“Logan, he's - “

Logan had been thrown from the truck. Crashed through the front windshield when the trailer had impacted against a massive fallen tree, he had skidded forward across the snowy road until he finally came to a stop some fifty feet from the truck, still in the snow.

Remy sighed. “I toldja Logan got thrown.”

“Ah.” Scott sighed. “Where is he?”

“Oh my god, he's  _ dead _ !” Marie cried, eyes wide and scared. “He can't have lived through that!”

“Fer a mutant, ye don't catch on, quickly.” Remy glanced at her. “Logan!”

“Gimme a minute.”

She cried out, shocked.

Logan stood, slowly, though he moved... strangely. His head was tilted to far to the side, so that his cheek was resting on his own shoulder, like something out of a horror movie, a headless horseman. Marie cried out again at the sight, but the man just reached up and moved his own head, setting it back on his neck, then shuddered, stretching his shoulders. “Hn.” He shook his head, trying to stretch out his neck, then started walking towards them. “What happened?”

“Tree,” Remy shrugged.

“Your neck was broken,” Marie gasped, gaping at Logan. “How did you...”

He just arched a brow. “What're you talkin' - “

He was cut off by an object hurtling out of the snowdrift at the side of the road, which slammed into Logan with all the speed and force of a freight train. It was a person, a man. Tall and broad shouldered, dressed in heavy furs that obscured his exact size and shape, he slammed Logan down into the road. He had long, greasy hair that hung around his face, and when he roared in anger at the man he'd pinned, his teeth seemed like fangs, like they had broken and created short, viciously sharp teeth. This man slammed Logan down, roaring. 

“Get back in the camper!” Remy cried, pushing back at Marie. “Inside!”

“There's fire!” She gasped.

“ _Inside_!”

Marie keened, but darted inside, quickly.

He clearly wasn't just any normal man, and with clawed fingers, he raked at Logan, slashing his face open and making him roar in rage and pain.

“Son of a bitch!” Logan roared, flipping the physically larger man, bodily. 

“Someone  _ help _ him!” Marie cried, from inside the trailer, voice shrill and piercing. At that bare hint that there was someone other than the three men there, the blond man under Logan snapped his head up, and he threw the other off.

“We told you to be quiet, Marie,” Scott groaned softly, but it was really mostly to himself.

“Get back,  _ petit _ ,” Remy ordered, his adamantium bo crackling as electricity sparked up and down the staff. “Be prepared to grab the girl and run.”

“I won't abandon you.” He growled. “Just get me a clear shot.”

“It is not - “

“Get me a clear shot, Remy!” Scott roared, fists balled at his sides.

The Cajun nodded, sharply, then threw up his staff to meet the brunt of the wildman's force as it hit him head on. For a brief moment, it was hard to see who was really dominating the struggle. Clawed hands wrapped hard around the staff and they wrestled back and forth with it for a moment. Then Remy wrenched it free and cracked the end of it into the other's jaw, and he howled as his head snapped back. 

Reaching into his jacket, Remy tugged out a single playing card, and in his fingers, it began to glow. Flicking it out, it struck the other in the jaw, then exploded, shoving his opponent back with a startled howl of pain.

Logan lept back into the fray, then, using the leverage from a lower position to shove his claws up into the man's kidneys. This was usually an end-game sort of move. It was excruciatingly painful, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a lacerated kidney meant death for the target. It was why Logan hated doing it – he had killed probably thousands of people in his life, and he was very, very good at what he did, but he absolutely hated doing it.

It didn't kill the man.

In all honesty, it appeared to have done nothing more than just piss him off, and he grabbed Logan's hands, ripping them sideways, tearing the claws out of himself.

That should have utterly destroyed his liver, his kidneys, and a few other generally essential organs. This man just lifted Logan over his head by his wrists, and bodily threw him. Logan slammed into the side of the trailer, which buckled inwards from the impact, triggering a panicked female scream from inside. 

The blond, rather than falling over and dying, just roared – with laughter. “Always better than you, Jimmy!”

Remy took two steps towards him, a pair of glowing cards in hand, but instead, dropped abruptly to his knees. 

“Clear!”

In his effort to deal the maximum amount of damage to Logan, the blond man in furs hadn't even noticed that the youngest of the three, with the scruffy auburn hair and the unassuming blind fold, had ripped said blindfold off, exposing a pale, lightly freckled face in its entirety. His lashes were dark and sooty on his cheeks as he kept his eyes pressed tightly closed. But the man certainly noticed when that young man opened those eyes, finally.

A focused red light burst from Scott's eyes, travelling exactly where he looked, and slammed into the stunned man's chest with all the concussion force of a bomb.

He was thrown back through the air, but before he could hit the ground, Scott slammed him with another beam.

The man bounced up into the air like someone was playing a twisted game of volleyball. Scott hit him again, and this time, the man was slammed violently to the ground, where he lay, still.

It was Logan who jogged forward to check on the stranger, grabbing a fistful of that greasy hair and slamming his head to the ground, again. Just in case.

Remy helped Scott slip the blindfold back on, and said, softly, “Ye did good, cher.”

“I thought it was only going to take two hits, but I sort of hit him at the wrong angle.”

“Ye did good.” Remy said again, kissing the younger man, a soft light press of lips to lips. “You always take good care of Remy and Logan, cher.”

The younger man sighed softly, and murmured, “So what does the guy want?”

“I dunno,” Logan frowned, dragging the limp, deadweight body of their attacker behind him. “But I say we set up a good old fashioned torture room and find out.”

“Remy whole heartedly approve of - “ The Cajun hesitated, suddenly, and crouched, using the tip of his staff to push the man's hair back. “ _ Mon Dieu _ ...”

“What is it, Remy?” Scott asked, setting his hand lightly on the other man's shoulder.

He looked up, red and black eyes narrowed, concerned. “Logan,  _ cher _ , d'ya remember Victor Creed?”

He shrugged, one-shouldered.

“I remember a Victor Creed,” Scott said, fingers tightening on Remy's shoulder. “I was told that was the name of the man that brought me to the Island.”

Logan growled, fingers tightening on Victor's shirt collar.

“Remy ain't surprised,  _ cher _ ,” He set his hand lightly on top of Scott's. “Victor Creed, he was that Department H's bitch. He was more'n that, too. He was the man Remy and Logan were goin' to the Island to find. Before.”

“He knows who I am.” Logan said what they were all thinking.

“He could fill some of the gaps,” Scott breathed, looking down at this man with entirely new respect.

“Remy.” Logan said tightly. “Tie him up.”

“Where are we going to  _ put _ him?!” Scott demanded, not even asking what Logan was planning. He had spent long enough with the pair of men here that he could predict their next breaths before they took them. He could certainly gauge Logan's intentions for someone, even if they were an enemy, who could fill in some of the gaping black wound that was Logan's past. What he  _ did _ question, however, was the sensibility of trying to drag the man along. After all, from the behaviour he'd been exhibiting before, the wild man with the anger management issues was there to get Marie.

“In the back,” he said, hauling him towards the trailer.

“But if he wakes up - ?!” Scott protested.

Remy swung the back door open for Logan, and smiled, a fleeting comforting thing, at Marie when she scrambled back, out of the way. “Keep yer blindfold off, cher.”

\---

“Zhis is where zhey're holding zhe children,” Kurt explained, frowning as he rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, tracing his two wide, chameleon-like fingers across the blue prints. They were slightly battered, but despite Warren's lame crack that 'Many Bothans had died for this information', they were absolutely invaluable. And according to the information Kurt had gathered from his rough-and-quick investigation, correct.

“What are the holding cells like?” Scott asked, leaning on Logan's side as they discussed the mess. He looked like shit, actually, pale and drawn, though most of his face still wasn't visible.

“Zhe ones I saw, zhey are like pits.” Kurt glanced at him, brows furrowed. “It as though zhey have thrown zhe children into zhem.”

“Will you be able to get the children out,  _ mon ami _ ?” Remy asked, tapping the map.

“If I see zhe surveillance first, I should be able to.”

“And if ye don't?”

“Zhen even the Great Nightcrawler does not dare to perform such a feat.” He said, bluntly. “I cannot risk zhe lives of zhe children. Ve would have to find an alternate method.”

“We may not  _ have _ an alternate method, Kurt.” Scott said, trying to be gentle about it, but there was an obvious concerned edge to his voice. “There is a very good chance you may be our only option. You – or Marie.”

The girl swallowed, biting her lip. “I'll do it if it's needed, but...”

“ _ Nein _ . I will not allow it.” Kurt said, firmly. Fervently. 

“Then it would appear we simply don't have many options, then.” Scott said, frowning. “I don't like this enough already. But there are children involved, so...”

“Speakin' of.” Logan spoke up. “Those boys said they wanna help.”

“Which boys?” Scott lifted his head, surprised.

“The ones we picked up the other day, at the hospital.” Logan said, looking down at the other. The young man, as confident and secure as he was, was curled into the broader man's chest, and Logan was content to keep his arm wrapped around the scrawny kid's waist. “The kid with the ice and the kid with the fire. What, Bob and Johnny?”

“Bobby and St. John.” Scott corrected, automatically.

“Sinjean.” Remy drawled. 

“No, Saint John.”

“ _ Oui _ , Sinjean.” He smirked. “Ye Yanks can't pronounce names? 'Saint John', it is 'Sinjean'. But no matter. Logan is right. The boys have offered their help.”

“Not a chance.” Scott said, firmly. “They're children.”

“War does not care if ve are children or men, Scott.” Kurt said, softly. “Zhe enemy does not care if zhey are men or boys.”

“We can keep them children as long as we can.” He said, firmly. “If I'd had the choice...”

“But they  _ do _ have the choice, sugah.” Marie said softly. “And this is what they're choosin'.”

“It isn't a fair choice!”

“War isn't fair, Scott.” Logan rumbled, frowning slightly.

“Look, zhe children must be retrieved from the facilies,” Kurt said, holding up his hands. “Zhere is a very good chance that zhe men who forced me to – to do vhat I did... zhey might be the same people. Ve simply cannot allow zhem to harm these  _ kinder _ .”

“That's my  _ point _ .” Scott said fiercely, thumping his fist down on the planning table.

Everyone in the room turned to look at him, stunned.

“This is war,” he said, firmly, as though he knew that everyone had turned to look his way. “It was not a war we declared – it was most definitely declared on us. And this war is going to destroy us, if we're not careful. Maybe it's too late for us to avoid war, but dammit, I want a future for mutant children where they don't have to  _ fight _ !”

“They want the same thing,  _ cher _ ,” Remy said softly.

\---

The dam was breaking.

Scott vaulted over the falling body of a soldier, and jerked his blindfold up, blasting another as he darted around the corner. The man howled in pain as he collapsed to the metal grating floor, his gun clattering across the floor as it fell beside him.

One of the children cowering behind Scott cried out in fear, and he wished, not for the first time, that he could have spared them seeing this. War was no place for children.

But these children had been caught in the crossfire.

Just for being different.

And that was something he couldn't allow to continue.

A small hand tugged on the back hem of his jacket, and Scott's head flicked towards him, and for one brief, abrupt moment, he actually saw the boy's mismatched eyes – before he fired a red beam of destruction at the rank of soldiers spilling around the corner. “Good job being my eyes,” he said, setting the blindfold back into place, and the child tugged a little.

“There's water on the floor!” One of the girl's cried, voice shrill, with fear.

“We're gonna drown!” Another wailed.

“No one is going to drown,” Scott said, but bit off whatever else he'd been about to say. He remembered, as clear as anything, when that one scientist on the Island had described his mutation as having a secondary level. “He has an unerring sense of direction,” the woman had said. “An innate understanding of geometry and space so profound that, even blind, he can unerringly find targets by sound and angle only. It's like a form of blind sense.” Right now, that sense of space was working overtime as he felt the ground trembling under his feet, and knew that someone had opened the floodgates.

Too little, too late, and now they were going to drown.

“Scott!”

Kurt disrupted his understanding of his surroundings. He broke through his perceived surroundings, destroyed any order he'd developed, then vanished from his mental landscape just as quickly. Normally this bothered Scott.

Right now, it made him so happy he almost cried.

“Kurt! Help me with the children!”

“I can take you all at - “

“I'm too big to go with them, you know you'd struggle with all of us.” He hauled up one of the little girls, the one afraid of drowning, and shoved her into Kurt's arms. “Just hurry back for me.”

“Scott, I - “

“Hurry, Kurt.” He said, earnestly. “And tell them – tell Remy and Logan – tell them - “

“Tell zhem yourself. Come, little ones.” Kurt gathered up the children, then reached for the little boy clinging to Scott's shirt. But he just shook his head, hard, clinging harder to the man's shirt.

“Come back for both of us,” Scott ordered, the rumbling under their feet growing in intensity by the second. “Just hurry!”

“ _ Da _ !” Kurt cried, then was gone in a small explosion of sound and smoke.

The little boy tugged insistently on Scott's shirt.

He crouched, and gathered the frail little boy into his arms, burying his face into Scott's own chest. “I'm so sorry this had to happen to you, big guy,” he said, and shifted his blindfold up as the first waves of water crashed around the corner towards them. “Hold on tight.”

He opened his eyes just as the water slammed down on them.

\---

“Why is he with us?”

Remy glanced over at the man in the front passenger seat. Logan had started talking, started communicating again, but it was stilted. It was like he'd had to relearn how to hold a conversation, and considering the skill with which he hadn't communicated before, Remy supposed he should be relieved the man wasn't just pointing and grunting. But it did catch him off guard when the man actually spoke.

“Why is what now,  _ cher _ ?”

“Why is he with us?” Logan gestured to the back seat, where Scott was sprawled out, breathing softly through parted lips. Every breath ruffled his hair, which hung almost over the blindfold, almost making him look, well, normal.

“Because he's coming.” Remy shrugged.

“He's a liability.”

“He has proven, time and again, that even without his eyes, the boy is not helpless.” Remy pointed out, patiently, fingers light on the wheel of their stolen car. “Remy does not know if it be his mutation or something else, but he seems to see. To sense.”

“Kid like that needs to be in a house somewhere, not – wandering around.”

“Not with Remy and Logan, perhaps?” He suggested.

Logan glowered at him. “Yeah, maybe. I ain't got time for babysittin'. We got bigger things to worry 'bout.”

“Like who the blazin' hells you is and why you wanted to get on that Island so damn bad?” Remy smirked slightly. “Remy told you, before, you should have told him why you were goin' there, what you wanted. Then he would have been able to tell you,  _ oui _ ?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He muttered. That he'd heard before. “We should dump him at a hospital.”

“And if they try to remove the blindfold at the hospital?”

He shrugged. “What's the worst that could happen?”

Remy glanced at the other man, disbelieving. “You ask this of a man that can charge any object and make it explode. He expects that the boy is a mutant,  _ cher _ . He imagines that the  _ worst _ that could happen could be anything.”

“So pin a note to his shirt. 'Hey, my name is Scott. Don't take the blindfold off'.”

“So it'd be the first thing they'd do then, instead of the second.” Remy rolled his eyes, thumbs tapping idly on the steering wheel, vaguely in time with the song on the radio, one that had been popular a few years ago, he was pretty sure.  _ A singer in a smokey room, smell of cigarettes and cheap perfume _ ... “Logan, you cannot drop this boy on the side of of the road and expect him to live. He is a human, just as anyone else, not a stray cat.”

“He ain't a human.” Logan muttered.

“Mutants be human,  _ mon ami _ . Mostly.”

“You know people don't believe that,” he said, scoffing. “I may not know my name or who the hell I am, but I can remember  _ that _ . I'm a beast. An animal.”

“ _ Le diable blanc _ ,” Remy laughed, tapping his own collarbone.

“The white devil?”

“ _ Oui, cher _ . This was what Remy was called, as  _ enfant _ . Because of the eyes, you see. Red and black... this is not what you call human,  _ oui _ ?  _ Mais _ , Remy still be human, under it all. Mostly.”

“Sure of that? Maybe we got organs humans don't really have.”

“If that be true,  _ cher _ , then mutants must be a lucky bunch. Give the boy a chance. Maybe he'll turn out to be useful.”

“Useful?” Logan repeated.

“The boy got you to eat.” Remy pointed out, smirking deviously, as he tapped the steering wheel.  _ Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues _ . “That's a miracle in its own right.”

“Funny.” He intoned.

“Remy thought so,  _ cher _ .”

“Still think it's a better idea to ditch him.”

In the back seat, Scott shifted just slightly, and wiped slowly at the moisture running out from under the blindfold. 

He could only cry when his eyes were closed.

“Give the boy a chance, Logan. There should be a safer place to leave him, when the time comes. Some kind of safe place for a mutant child.”

“Or some cabin in the woods where no one'd stumble on him.”

“Something will come up,  _ cher _ .”

And Scott swore, at that moment, to make himself absolutely invaluable. 

_Don't stop believin'._

\---

“This plan will never work.”

Logan didn't look up as the other man walked slowly up beside him. He just blew a held lungful of pungent smoke out slowly, filling the gold and pink sunset tinged around them for a moment, then the smoke drifted away on the breeze. “That's a very good possibility.”

Victor Creed lowered himself to sit beside Logan, slowly, before digging in his jacket for a short, thin cigar. The opposite of Logan's thick stogie, perhaps.

Holding out a pack of matches, he still didn't look away from the scene in front of them. “What would you suggest we do, instead?”

Victor waved his match out, then flicked it out over the edge of the dam. “Run.”

Alkili Lake spread out behind them, smooth and still, its surface, like a mirror. In front of them, spreading out from the dam they sat on top of like the massive wings of a theatre stage, spread the Alkili Lake river valley. For almost fifteen years, this was the source of their food, their supplies, where the roads that kept them connected to the outside world lay. Then two months ago, the Canadian military had moved in,  _ en masse _ , in the dead of the night, and something changed. Even now, they could see men moving through the trees, black indistinct forms, from here.

“I came here, in the beginning, for a reason, Victor.” Logan reminded him.

“Yeah, cause this is where our Department H buddies fucked you up right good. I remember it, Jimmy.” He reached out to tap the other man's forehead with a clawed finger, just drawing blood. “Even if you didn't. Mystery solved. Yer an escaped weapon. Now gather up yer wimmin and yer chillens and go West, young man.”

“I think we're just gonna circle the wagons,” he said, smirking, carrying on the Western metaphor.

“And yer gonna get scalped.” Victor said, bluntly. “S'all right fer you, you'll just grow that mop back. But yer pretty boys? Better kiss 'em goodbye before we leave, cause you ain't gonna see their faces again.”

Logan didn't argue the point. 

There was a very good chance that Victor was right.

“This was why it always just used to be you and me, Jimmy.” He said, lowly, voice barely above a growl as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He didn't look quite the beast he used to, but his lanky hair still hit his scruffy jaw, hanging limp, the earlier breeze gone. “We didn't need nobody else. We don't  _ need _ nobody else.”

“I'm not leaving with you, Victor.” he said, with the tired air of someone who had made the same argument so many times it was routine.

“You don't even  _ know _ none of those kids, Logan.” He growled, brows furrowed. “It's suicide to go back in there.”

“Didn't think you'd ever accept defeat that easily.”

“I ain't accepting defeat,” he bared his teeth in a brief snarl, lip curled back to expose short fangs. “But you and me, we know how these things work, Jimmy. Pick yer battles. And if you waltz in there to save a bunch of mutie kids that might not even be there, ye are walkin' into a trap so big it might as well have neon lights and a red carpet. How d'hell do you think we got these plans? Shit like that don't just drop in yer lap.”

“A friend got 'em for us.” Logan said, drawing a lungful of smoke, ashes tumbling off the end of the cigar. 

“A friend. Bullshit.” Victor scoffed.

“An old friend.” He amended, slightly, blowing the smoke back into the air.

“Ye trust them?”

“Not a chance.” Logan smirked, holding his cigar out over the massive yawning canyon that spread out under their legs, flicking the ashes off. “But I trust the map.”

“Why?” Victor demanded, eyes dark and moody.

“Cause I remember it.” He said, casually. “Not all of it, or anything. But enough. Enough to pick up bits and pieces. Enough to trust the map.”

He frowned. “...there's some shit in there you never saw.”

“Of course there is.” He shrugged. “That's what the maps are for.”

“Those are just blueprints.” Victor frowned, flicking his own mostly unsmoked cigar out in the valley. The sun was swiftly setting, now that sunset was over, and they were able to track the arch of the red glow through the air for a few moments before it disappeared entirely. “There are things that weren't on the design for the place. Things that someone who'd been inside would have to tell you.”

“Oh yeah?” He glanced at the other man. “Guess we'll have to figure it out when we get there, then.”

“Or find someone who knows.” Victor rose, grunting slightly when he straightened, and waited. “Well? Ain'tcha coming?”

“I thought your plan was 'run'.” Logan smirked, standing.

“And if ye had any sense in that metal head o' yours, it'd be yer plan, too. But I ain't leaving my idjit little brother out there to be massacred and taken in again because he was... uninformed.” Victor smirked. “So let's take a look at those plans of yers, Jimmy boy.”

\---

Logan slammed Scott against the wall, consuming his mouth, rather than kissing him, a furious, desperate, passionate thing. Scott had buried his fingers in the other man's hair, and pulled at the scruffy brown locks, as desperate as Logan.

Shifting his thigh between the other's legs, Logan hitched him up, pressing him both harder into the wall and harder into Logan himself. The younger man broke that feverish kiss with a cry of pleasure, head thrown back in joy and ecstasy and pain. But he wouldn't release the other's hair, just held on for dear life. “Logan...” he groaned, desperately, clutching at him.

The older man chuckled, a soft rumble, and nipped lightly at Scott's jaw. “Brat...”

He laughed, breathlessly, and panted, “It is all your fault.”

“What, none of this was Remy's fault?” The third man in the room drawled, squirming in close to the pair, nuzzling in under Scott's jaw, kissing his skin, lightly, then turned to kiss Logan, firmly. 

Logan groaned, lifting one hand off of Scott's hips to wrap it around the back of Remy's neck, holding him closer. 

“No fair,” Scott panted. “Hate when you do that and I can't watch.”

“There will be a way to find you eyes,” Remy chuckled, kissing the youngest of the three with light, teasing kisses. It was a sort of playful chasing, a tempting promise of what he wanted. “Until then, see with your lips,  _ cher _ .”

“ _ I _ like watchin',” Logan smirked. “So kiss away.”

Flushed, he murmured, “It's not very nice of you to watch, Logan. That's the sort of thing that a voyeur does.”

“He  _ is _ a voyeur,  _ cher _ .” Remy drawled, and shifted Scott forward on Logan's thigh, grinning when that made the boy cry out, arching his spine. He slid them, between Scott and the wall, sandwiching him tightly between himself and Logan, pressing up to lay his chest seamlessly against the other's back, dropping light, fleeting kisses against the back of the boy's neck. “Logan likes to watch... adores to watch... he loves it best when Remy and you get up to things.”

“Things?” He panted, trembling slightly.

“All sorts of things,  _ cher _ .” 

Logan laughed softly, rocking Scott on his thigh, grinning when the boy groaned, deep and low in his throat, and kissed him, firmly. 

Remy watched, eagerly. He loved when his men moved together, he loved when the three of them joined together. Logan always had a deep glowing light in his eyes, a spark of a wild sort of desire and life that came fully to the front when he threw himself into their pleasure. And Scott's plump lips always fell open as he gasped, always licking his lips, his breath catching beautifully. He could never decide, in his life, whether he wanted someone with the rough edges and demanding possessive domination of a man like Logan, or the beautiful, breakable, delicate submission of a boy like Scott. 

Well, Remy had always been sort of greedy.

So he took both. 

Pressing hard into Scott's back, he leaned forward to kiss Logan, firmly. He'd keep them both.

\---

The dam was breaking.

Logan sank his claws into the chest of yet another faceless soldier. Dimly, he registered his gratitude that they wore gas masks, so he didn't have to see their faces as he slaughtered them. But consciously, his mind was on getting Remy and Scott out of the building, and getting to the waiting truck. He really didn't care where they went from here. He didn't care that they were about to lose their home of fifteen years.

He cared about getting the men out of that place. Alive.

Someone had opened the floodgates, and water had been redirected, and was starting to pour into the flood plains. But the water behind the wall had been pressing against the dam for so long that now that the crack had been made, there was no holding it back, now.

He could hear it, could hear the rumble of sound as the water started crashing down into the valley.

He'd read once that water was ten times denser than concrete. At the time, he'd sort of scoffed at the idea, because he used to work with concrete, and he knew how absolutely solid it got when it was set. But it was crashing down, now, and already trees were starting to topple like dominoes, and great hunks of concrete were falling off the dam itself, and he believed it, now.

Another soldier stumbled towards him, spraying bullets in a panic, and Logan dispatched him, automatically.

“Logan!”

His head snapped to face the sound of the voice, and for a moment, relief surged through him as he spotted a familiar man dashing out of the entrance of the base, clutching his bo. “Remy! Where's Scott?!”

“Separated!” He called back, and Logan's heart sank.

“He's still in there!?”

“ _ Oui _ , he was with  _ l'enfants _ , there was an explosion...”

Logan swore, and raced back up the hill, right into the door Remy had just exited from. He splashed through water that was already knee high and rapidly rising.

“What are you doing?” Remy howled after him.

“I have to get Scott!”

“Kurt went - “

“I don't fucking  _ care _ what Kurt is doing, Remy.” Logan spun to snarl at his lover, eyes dark and entirely wild. “You shouldn't fucking care either.”

Remy's eyes met him for a moment, then the red eyed Cajun broke into a run, falling into step behind Logan as they rushed inside.

The water was rising rapidly, up to their thighs now, slowing progress. It was like sludging through wet cement, and Logan was reminded all over again of the properties of water. It was like wet, cold, heavy hands, clinging at his pants, his boots, struggling to pull him back, to slow his progress.

“Scott!” Remy howled behind him. “Answer, cher! Are ye out there?!”

Logan's head snapped up like a feral's dog's, head poised.

“Logan,  _ ma cherie _ ...  _ quest que c'est _ ?”

“Scott!” He roared, in answer, head tilted, searching for the sound he'd heard, dimly, in response to Remy's call. Sure enough, he heard something, distant seeming and echoing. “I hear him.”

“He never should have been let go back in here,” Remy growled, and began to follow Logan towards the voice. “Should have gotten him on that damn helicopter and sent Remy alone in after the poppets...”

Logan, incidentally, agreed.

The man with the ridiculous helmet had offered them a way out of the valley, a way to get as far away from this whole damn situation as possible. He'd offered them a way out, but Scott had refused, Scott had insisted he had to get the children, instead, and run back inside the building. But they should have forced him onto the damn helicopter, should have forced him into safety when they'd had the chance...

But there were bigger things to worry about right now.

Like their lover's voice, tremulous and frightened.

And the water filling the base.

\---

“Turn that off, it's depressin'.”

Scott didn't move – nor did he turn off the television. “I keep the news on because it is an effective way to keep track of what's going on in the world, Logan. You should try it sometime. Makes youless of an uneducated boor.”

“Ho-oh!” Remy laughed. “You've been  _ told, ma cheri _ !”

Logan snorted, and tapped the side of Scott's foot – the one he had up on the coffee table – with his beer bottle. The younger man dropped his foot off the table and Logan slid past him to sit, bonelessly, on the couch. It creaked ominously at the sudden increase in weight, but stayed solid. They'd tested this a time or a million before, after all. “You know ye could just listen to the radio.”

“It isn't the same.” Scott answered, calmly, leaning on the other man's shoulder.

“Why not? It's just talkin' to you, anyways.” Logan slung his arm across the back of the couch, fingers brushing across the top of Scott's shoulder, lightly. “Ye don't even put described video on, or nothin'. Yer not seeing anything.”

“I don't need to see.” Scott said, lightly. “I get all I need from the descriptions and from your reactions.”

“ _ Oui, cher _ . Scott can read you as a book.” Remy teased, leaning over the back of the couch, smirking. “The boy knows you better than you know yourself, he does.”

“Possible.” Scott shrugged.

“Ain't fair when the two of you gang up on me,” Logan grumbled, but he was smirking softly.

“What news  _ are _ ye watchin', anyway?” Remy frowned, considering the ancient tv screen.

“War in Darfur.” Logan anwered. 

“There's always war in Darfur,” Remy frowned.

“Shh!” Scott held up a hand, suddenly, clicking the volume up on the remote.

“ - is not a cause for concern, the authorities are saying.” The entirely too perky news caster was saying. “They are saying that today's incident seems to be an isolated one, and that there is no danger to the public, now. However, this is seen by many to be something of a party line. Andrew?”

“Thank you, Vicky.” 'Andrew' said, somber and serious as he held the station'd logo'd microphone in front of him like a shield. He looked genuinely scared. 

“Kid looks like he's gonna piss his pants.” Logan smirked.

“Shh!” Scott hissed, frowning.

“ - footage is alarming,” Andrew was saying. “As we can see from these images taken by our air traffic helicopter, what appears to be some kind of para-military group are the ones who invaded the school building. The military denies any involvement, and the police claim to have no idea what occured. Some are theorizing that it may have been terrorists who attacked the Westchester school. One theorist offers the idea that it may have been mutant terrorists.”

Another person's voice cut in. “Studies have shown that mutants of every species – humans and otherwise – are often sterile. So we theorize that there is a chance that mutant terrorists might be kidnapping children to raise as their own.”

“But those children wouldn't be mutants.” Andrew said.

“No, that's true, but maybe they have a way of mutating those children.... radiation, or something.”

“An interesting theory.” The newscaster was saying, though he sounded utterly unconvinced by the argument. “However, authorities are saying, despite the accounts, all of the children are accounted for, so it appears that whoever was assaulting the school, did not manage to actually harm or capture any of the students.”

“That's bullshit.” Logan said, bluntly.

“Mm. No way this was big 'nuff to end up on the news and no one got hurt.” Remy agreed. 

“Who do you think did it?” Scott asked, softly.

The others hesitated, puzzling that over for a moment, the television nattering on in the background the only sound.

“Well, I don't think it was mutant terrorists.” Logan said, at last. 

“Why not?” Remy asked, surprised.

“You ever seen mutants with technology or gear anywhere as nice as theirs?” Logan smirked, amused.

“No,” Scott murmured. “But that doesn't mean it's impossible.”

“You think t'was mutants?” Remy asked, frowning slightly as he glanced over at Scott.

“No.” He said, immediately. 

“So who did it, then?”

Scott hesitated, clearly seriously considering this. “To be honest, I'm not sure. It could have been the American military - “

“They denied it.” Logan reminded him.

“What, you think they'd actually  _ admit _ to being involved in something like this?” Scott waved vaguely at the television. “Never in a million years. Look what they did with you, Logan. There is no way they'd actually pony up to admit that this was them. But I think there's a good chance it is military, at least some branch of it. Everything just lines up too well. They move into that base up the lake, and we got a good look, not all of them were Canadian military, some of them were American. So they set up a new base in a remote area, and suddenly para-military men launch a full fledged assault on a school.”

“Why a school, though?”

“...maybe they had mutant students?” Scott suggested.

“Why wage an all out war on kids, though? Not everything is  _ mutants _ , Scott.” Logan shrugged. “Could be a kidnap ring, looking for ransom for rich kids? Could be a pissed off dad whose ex is trying to keep his kids away, desperate times, desperate measures, all that. Maybe it's straight out robbery. Maybe they hit the wrong place, or maybe it was a test of Homeland Security, or something. Just cause we're public enemy number one these days doesn't mean we're the  _ only _ enemy.”

He hesitated. “...I didn't think of that.”

“Granted, it probably  _ was _ about mutants.” He smirked.

“Yer terrible, cher.” Remy rolled his eyes, and tried to snag the remote out of Scott's fingers. “Give that here, that Survivor show is on. I wanna see if anyone gets killed.”

“Not yet,” he held it just out of his reach – Remy clearly wasn't actually trying to get the remote, because if the master thief had actually been trying to, he would have had it in a heartbeat – and flicked the channel. “We've watched the American news, now it's time for the Canadian news.”

Logan groaned heavily. “Oh god, why?”

“Uneducated boor, remember?” Scott smirked slightly, gesturing at the screen, which was giving some story about a car crash in Ontario, only newsworthy, apparently, because of the enormity of the accident itself. Dozens of cars involved, explosions, whole sections of the 401 destroyed. “You watch this, and I guarantee that you'll be less - “

“ _Ta toi_!” Remy shouted, suddenly, and both Scott and Remy froze, silent.

Remy leaned forward over the back of the couch, mouth open slightly as he stared at the screen. The others waited, confused, but sure that Remy would explain soon.

He didn't, not exactly.

Instead, he bolted up, snatched his bo off the table, and said, “Pack up. Time to go.”

“Go?” Scott looked up, stunned, spinning to face his direction. “Where are we going?”

“Ontario.”

Logan stood, gaping at their lover. “What the fuck're we going to _Ontario_ for?”

“To rescue a couple mutants.”

Gaping, Scott stood, rounding the couch to head into the scruffy little kitchen, frowning. “Remy? What are you talking about?”

“That accident... didja hear the part where they said one car had two teenaged boys in it? Take a look at their car, and at _them_. Their car is crispy. Extra crispy. There ain't nothin' left of it. But the boys, beat up as they were, weren't burned up. Not a bit. They said they were among the wounded brought to St. Joseph's in Toronto.”

“And there is no way that any non-mutant could have been through a fire like that and not been burned.” Scott murmured.

“Exactly, cher.”

“Huh.” He frowned slightly. “So I guess I'll go get the car, then?”

Logan clapped his hand down on Scott's shoulder. “Leave the drivin' to those of us that ain't blind, Scooter.”

Marie was left in charge. Sure, there were some _adults_ among the others they were leaving behind, including that new man, Kurt, but Marie had always sort of fallen into a bit of a leadership role with the others, because of her quiet simple nature. So she kissed each of their cheeks through her scarf, then shooed them out the door.

It took about a day and a half of solid driving to get there. Logan insisted it was faster to go up into the northern Ontario regions, rather than down through the states like Remy's map reading skills told them would be faster. In the end, he was the one with the adamantium foot and he, if not Scott and Remy as well, were wanted by the American government, so maybe it was a good idea, anyway. They didn't stop anywhere along the way, except for food once and a bathroom break twice, though once was on the side of the road because Scott insisted he simply could _not_ wait a moment longer.

Tumbling out of the truck, he groaned softly, cracking his lower back. “I hate long car rides.”

“There'll be another on the way back, _cher_ , but with more passengers.” Remy smirked, then laughed when the younger man groaned. 

“So where do we find a couple mutant boys?” Logan asked, frowning.

Remy slid a pair of aviators on, with mirrored lenses, and smirked, “Let an expert work his magic, _cheri_.”

Twenty minutes later, Scott was stifling laughter, and Logan was seething.

“You are _unbelievable_ ,” he growled.

Scott laughed out loud at that.

“Got you in, didn't it, _cher_?” Remy grinned. He was pressed in tight to Logan's side, arm slung around his waist, hand on the other's lower stomach. He'd been sort of clinging to him ever since they'd entered the hospital, and his explanation that he and Logan were a married couple and that he had adopted Logan's three sons – and two of them were among the injured – had somehow _worked_. Scott didn't really know how, but Remy clinging to their lover and actually _crying_ – the master thief was apparently good at busting out the fake tears if needed – and reaching out to Scott and wailing that at least _one_ of their sons hadn't been injured had worked. Like, it had really worked. Shocked, frankly, but really more amused by the look on Logan's face, Scott just grinned. “It got us all in.”

“It did.” Scott agreed, and hesitated at the door of the room they'd been about to step into. 

“Scott?” Logan frowned, glancing back at him. 

“Something feels... off.” He turned, as though trying to see what was bothering him, but of course he was wearing the blindfold, and he couldn't see anything at all. “Like we're being watched, maybe.”

“It's a hospital, _cher_.” Remy took his hand, tugging him along after them. “Someone's always watchin'.”

“Yeah, that's true,” he murmured, unconvinced.

There were two beds in the room, and one lay empty, rumbled sheets sprawled across it. The other bed had a young man lying in it, pale against his sheets, eyes closed. On the edge of the mattress, another boy was perched, dark hair slicked back, playing with a zippo lighter. He bolted to his feet when they came in, black eyes flicking at them all, warily. “Who are you?” He demanded, voice just tinged with the hint of an Australian twang.

“We're friends,” Scott offered, stepping forward, trying to be non-threatening. He'd found out a long time ago that his blindfold sometimes freaked people out, but it also made him seem entirely non-threatening, unlike his companions. After all, who was scared of a blind man? “We just want to help.”

The boy scoffed. “We don't need help.”

“Look,” he said, trying to make this run smoothly. The last thing they needed was to freak out a young mutant. Who knew what his powers were? “That accident you were in? No one walks out of something like that without a single burn. No one human, anyway.”

A dark look flicked over the boy's eyes, and he flicked the zippo, producing a flame – that abruptly flared up. 

“Scott!” Logan shouted, but the “blind” man was already moving, dashing forward.

“Stay away from us!” The boy shouted, flames shooting up his arms, engulfing him up to the shoulders, and he flung a handful of flames – as utterly impossible a thing as that sounded – at the man moving towards him. Scott ducked, and he cried again, “Stay the hell away from us!”

“We don't want to hurt you!” Scott threw up his hands. “We're not here for that! We're trying to help you.”

“Heard that before,” he snarled, the flames licking at his hair, now, like a phoenix, or a Valkyrie of the flames. He lifted his flaming arms, growling, and moved to fling flames at Scott again.

“Stop.”

Everyone froze, and the flames that had started up so quickly only a moment before were abruptly gone, leaving only the barest cloying scent of smoke in the air.

“Bobby.” The boy whispered, a bare whisper.

The pale boy on the bed smiled weakly, even his blue eyes pale. It was clearly taking him considerable effort to even move, but his fingers were wrapped tightly around the other boy's wrist, and even from here, they could see something unusual – ice was spreading slowly out from where Bobby was touching. “Fighting won't solve anything, remember?”

The other hesitated, then nodded, sharply.

Remy started forward to stand beside Scott. He'd say it was for support and to display solidarity, if he was ever asked. In reality, he was doing exactly what Scott always insisted he didn't need to do, and he was acting as a body guard for the slight boy of their little complicated trip. “The boys ain't here to attack you. Honest. The idea is to help.”

“We don't want to join your army, or your school, or your circus, and we sure as hell are _not_ going to let you experiment on us.” The boy said, firmly.

“You really think that's what we're here for?” Logan smirked. “D'we look like the experimentin' type?”

“Come on, Sinjean.” Bobby murmured. “At least we can hear 'em out.”

The dark haired boy hesitated, but finally nodded.

Scott sighed softly, then started, “We are trying to help. See, we know what it's like to be hunted down because we're different. We... we offer a different option. It's not much, but we have a place, out west, where mutants can live. Safe.”

St. John scoffed. “Yeah right. Heard _that_ one before, too.”

“So what,” Bobby murmured. “You're just in hiding somewhere?”

“Not exactly.” Scott cleared his throat. “Though obviously we are trying not to be detected. A lot of people would take a dim view of something like a stronghold full of mutants. But we're not 'in hiding', _per se_. We're just... living. Quietly, and researching pretty much constantly to see if we can figure out what's going on, but it's not like we're asking you to hide out in some bomb shelter somewhere.”

“S'more like a hippie commune, really.” Remy shrugged.

Scott groaned. “You're not helping, Remy.”

“Why not?” He blinked at the younger man. “If Remy had been told that it was gonna be like a hippie commune right off the bat, he'd have been more eager to set the thing up.”

“This isn't like that, Remy.” He sighed. “They're just – did you hear that?”

“Get down!” Logan roared, dashing forward.

A metal cylinder, like a tin pop can or something, rolled into the room, tinkling slightly when it would bump into an obstacle. It seemed so very innocent – but then the end blew off, and a noxious yellow cloud began billowing out of it like a malevolent djinn released from its prison, filling the room. Logan dove to the floor to grab the thing, then flung it at the window like a quarterback throwing a spiral.

The metal smoke bomb hit the window, which shattered at once, sending a rain of glass and smoke out into the courtyard. 

“Well, iffin they didn't know before...” Remy muttered.

“Get Scott.” Logan growled, claws snapping out of his fists. “Get everyone behind me.”

“Holy shit!” St. John howled.

Remy shoved Scott behind him, flicking his bo out, electricity already starting to crackle up and down its length. “Take care o' the kids,” he ordered.

“I can help.” Scott snapped. “Just clear a way for me...”

“Watch the kids. For once, listen to what yer told, yes, _cheri_?” Remy said tightly, through gritted teeth. “They need to get you 'n them out in one piece. Got it?”

“Yeah.” He muttered.

That was when another smoke bomb rolled into the room, then another.

Then the gunfire started.

Scott dashed to move behind Bobby's bed, grabbing the sheets. “Help me pull him off the bed, c'mon...”

St. John nodded, gripping both the sheets and Bobby's arm tightly, tugging him off. The three of them tumbled to the floor, and they curled in the meagre cover of the bed, hands over their mouths, and tried not to breathe in the smoke.

\---

“Scott.”

His head snapped up, furrowing brows barely visible above the upper edge of his blindfold, surprised and startled by a new voice. “Hello?” He called, warily.

When she stepped out of the bushes properly, he turned to face the sound of her approach.

“Hello, darling Scott,” she drawled, holding a hand out to him, tucking the blue prints she carried all rolled up under her other arm, to get them out of the way. “How are you coping, sweet boy?”

He wiped his dirty hands on his pants, then stood, shaking her hand, politely. “I'm sorry, have we met?”

She was tall, this woman, he could detect that easily enough. Tall, thin, nicely shaped. He couldn't see that she was a handsome woman, with strong features – smooth jaw line, snapping dark eyes, lips that curled into an impish smile by nature alone – and had long crimson hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She smiled, sadly, almost, and said, “No, you've never met this woman.”

Then she changed.

Her skin itself seemed to ripple, to move, then almost melt away, revealing underneath that blue, bare skin, scaled lightly with occasional barbs. Her eyes were yellow, and her hair red but slicked back tight to her skull. “More recognizable?”

Scott sighed softly at the familiar voice, and patted her shoulder. “It's good to see you, Raven.”

“You've never seen me, darling.” She corrected, voice mild.

“Technically true. C'mon, Marie will be delighted to hear you're here, you know she worries when you're gone.”

“I can't come in, Scott.” Raven said, clearing her throat. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. I can't come in.” She tugged the blue prints out from under her left arm, and tapped him in the chest with the roll of papers. “I have somewhere else I need to be. I just stopped in for a moment, then I have to run.”

“But Marie - “

“Needs more from her mother than just a wave, Scott. I will return, later, for a longer visit. I promise. For now, I just have something for you.”

He frowned, confused. “What do you mean, Raven?”

The woman pressed the roll of blue prints into Scott's hand. “Do not tell a soul you got these from me. There are a lot of people that would start asking some _very_ awkward questions if they knew, and that, Scott, is the last thing any of us need. So keep these close to your chest, young man, and use them well.”

“What are they?” He frowned, running his fingers up and down the long roll.

“Blue prints.”

Scott's confusion at that answer must have shown on his face, because Raven laughed softly, curling her fingers against the side of his neck, fingertips brushing gently against the base of his skull, at the small hairs at the nape. “Blueprints that I have a feeling you're going to need, darling. They're for the base.”

His eyes widened. “...the base... the base down the valley?”

“Yes,” she murmured, smiling wistfully at him. “I still wish, Scott, that we could see your beautiful eyes, Scott. I could - “

“Remember what happened last time, Raven?” He cut her off.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She smiled wistfully, and dropped her hand off of his shoulder. “I'm sorry.”

“Thank you, though.” He said, genuinely. “For these.”

“I help my family, Scott,” Raven said simply, and stepped back. 

“Will we see you again, soon?”

“You've still never seen me, sweetheart, but we'll see what we can do.” She waved her fingers as she walked away. “Stay safe, Scott, you hear me?”

“Of course,” he nodded. 

“I mean it,” she said, firmly, morphing as she walked back, form changing to that of a young, almost emaciated man, one eye blue, one eye brown, then she melted back into the bushes. 

“...thank you, Raven.” He murmured.

\---

“Look, Remy knows yer memory is gone, and that any thing you recover is a victory, but...” Remy dropped his duffle, one from a thrift store a few days back filled with second hand clothes that he had definitely not paid for, onto the rickety wooden kitchen table. “But this place, _cher_...”

“Smells old.” Scott said at last, standing in the kitchen like a lost puppy.

“I remember this.” Logan said, quietly, walking through the little cabin. He seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once, fingers trailing over counters, surfaces. He drifted towards the large windows at the end of the living room, where it opened up to the full sweeping vista of the Alkili Lake river valley, which spread out before them like a tourist brochure. Resting his fingers on the glass, he stared below, and murmured, “I know I know this place.”

Remy stood up against Logan's back, pressing into him. The other man stiffened for a moment, then slowly relaxed. “So the plan is stayin' for yer memories, then?”

“Yeah.” Logan rumbled, softly.

Scott had observed these two very carefully. He couldn't watch them, of course, because he couldn't actually see anything, but their scents and speech patterns were enough to glean a lot of information from. For one, he could tell that they were close. Very “close”, in the way that, if nothing else, they had a history. This gave him a lot of hope. Second, most of the time they acted like Scott wasn't even in the room – not in conversation, but in action. They assumed he was blind, and so far, Scott hadn't done much to correct them.

But he did also think that maybe he could use this to his advantage.

He started with Remy, first. Remy was least likely to stab first, ask questions later.

Once the fire was burning merrily in the fireplace, and food had been eaten, and they were sitting around in the silence, Scott rose to his feet, and walked over to the chair Remy had claimed as a sort of throne, and cleared his throat. Waiting an appropriate length of time for a person to lift their head and look at him, Scott said, “I wanted to thank you properly for saving me from the Island.”

“T'weren't nothing, _petit_ , Remy was not 'bout to leave a blind boy to rot with them animals.”

He swallowed tightly, and reminded himself of why he was doing this. _I will be useful_. “No, I don't think you understand, Remy. I want to thank you. _Properly_.”

And he lowered himself to his knees in front of Remy's seat, trying not to seem nervous.

“Whatcha doin', _petit_?” Remy demanded, an odd lilt to his voice. Across the room, Logan growled, but it wasn't an angry sort of sound, so he forged on, regardless. Without a word, Scott deftly undid the other man's pants, and reached inside, wrapping delicate but callused fingers around Remy's prick, stroking gently, slowly drawing him out of his pants. Remy's dick felt like velvet over iron, which was exactly how he'd have described Remy himself, so he supposed that it was sort of perfect.

“Not that Remy _minds_ , _cher_ ,” Remy cleared his throat, and Scott felt him buck slightly under his finger's ministrations. “But are you sure of what yer doin'?”

“Very,” he promised, leaning forward to lick at the head, tasting salty pre-come already.

Remy's hips bucked, and he knew he'd made the right choice.

Scott pressed soft, open-mouthed kisses along the length of the other's penis, then licked back up the way he'd come before, slipping his mouth over the other's erection itself. Fortunately, it was easy enough to do by taste and feel. He'd refuse to repeat this fact to anyone who asked, but when the Department H program had scooped him up in California a few months before, he'd been turning tricks in alleys and behind bars to earn enough to eat. So this was... well, at least he _chose_ this.

“Oh, _cher_...” Remy breathed, bucking.

He hummed softly around him, trying to _thank_ him, in his own way. Really trying to enforce the idea that he was _useful_ to them, even if just for this. He didn't want to be dumped somewhere. He wanted to be essential to their little trio, even if it was just because he gave mind-blowing blow-jobs. It might not be the best thing to be kept around for, but sex sells, and sex saves. 

It didn't take as long as he'd actually expected. He'd sort of figured that Remy was Mister Suave, so he'd probably take a lot of work to get off. 

Turns out Remy just really liked sex, and getting some was enough to get him off. 

Scott coughed when the other came in his mouth, but before he could even _think_ about something like whether or not he was going to spit or swallow – wasn't that what people focused on when they did things like blowing a 'friend' so they wouldn't kick their ass out in the snow? - a hand fisted in his hair, and he was tugged back off of Remy's penis with a sharp jerk to his hair, and Scott gasped seconds before Logan slammed their lips together, almost violently. Fingers still clutching at Remy's thighs, Scott whimpered into the bruising kiss as Logan all but devoured his mouth, possessively. Finally, Logan leaned back, though his fingers were still twisted in amongst Scott's shaggy auburn-brown hair. 

“ _That_ ,” Remy breathed, “Was hotter than the blowjob itself.”

Scott swallowed, tightly, flushed. His mouth tasted salty and sharp, a bit like Remy's semen, a bit like the cigar Logan had been smoking earlier that evening, and a lot like the whiskey the man had been drinking before he'd decided to kiss Scott like a madman. Logan tugged a little on his hair again, a sharp little tug that didn't really hurt, but certainly reminded him that the other man was there. 

“Didn't expect that,” Logan smirked.

“You're the one who did the kissing,” Scott panted, flushed. He was leaning over, slightly, his skull resting in the other man's palm – he was holding his hair, anyway, he could hold him. “So you shouldn't be saying you didn't expect it.”

“I expected _that_. Didn't expect you to start blowin' Remy.”

“Oh. Would you rather I _stopped_ doing that?” He smirked, slightly.

“Not a fuckin' chance.”

“Heh, Remy would like to get to watch this time... next time you blow Logan, _oui_?”

“Sure, Remy.” He smiled, flushed. 

He'd made himself useful.

\---

“Someone is fuckin' the landscape up.”

Logan groaned softly, lifting his head off of the pillows, blinking up at the man standing at the end of the bed. “...what the fuck ye talkin' bout, Remy?”

“And why are you talking in the middle of the night?” Scott's head was buried under one of the pillows, so his voice sounded muffled and sort of garbled. Still, it was clearly obvious that he was still exhausted, his voice sounded very slurred. “Aren't we supposed to be sleeping? I thought we figured this out years ago. When the sun goes down, we go to sleep.”

“Someone is fuckin' the landscape up.” Remy said, firmly, climbing onto the edge of the bed, eyes dark, the red almost gone amongst the darkness of his eyes. “Remy thinks he can nudge the someone here, but they're really fuckin' shit up.”

Logan glanced at their bedroom window, frowning. “...the valley looks normal.”

“Not _this_ landscape.” He huffed. “The landscape. Kinetically.”

“Nnngh.” Scott reluctantly slid out from under the pillow, shifting his blindfold slightly, to make sure it was in a more secure spot, then sat up. “Like Marie did?”

Remy nodded. 

“He nodded, Scott. You really need to remember the kid can't see you, Remy.” Logan rolled his eyes. 

“I gathered,” the youngest man yawned, and patted the bed between him and Logan. “Come on, Remy, come sit with us again. We can go back to sleep, and we'll worry about the person who is playing with kinetics in the morning.”

“Now.” He said, firmly. “Come on.”

“Dammit, we have to get out of _bed_ to go help bring mutants here, now?” Logan groaned, but swung his feet out of the bed, standing. “Nnngh. Fine. But you owe us.”

“ _Naturalement_.” Remy nodded, and held out a hand to Scott.

He took it, slowly, and followed the other two men out into the living room. The room was cleaner than it used to be, though Logan still claimed that it used to be even nicer. They'd thrown out the old couch, which had long since rotted out and become a home for rodents, and replaced it with one they picked up for ten bucks on the side of a road at a garage sale. There was a blanket tossed across it now, one that Marie had made for them, claiming that at least making something like this made her feel useful. 

Scott had completely understood her need to feel useful, and helped her in any way he could. 

He sat heavily on that couch, now, tugging the crocheted blanket around himself, and waited for Remy to explain exactly how and why he needed help. 

“So what're they doin' that's fucking up the landscape, then?” Logan asked, and Scott didn't look up when he heard the fridge door open, then close, and simply took the glass bottle that Logan handed him, cracking the cap off. He sipped at the beer, waiting.

Remy took a swig of his own beer once Logan handed it to him, and said, “He's bouncin'.”

“Bouncing.” Logan repeated.

“One second he's on the Eastern seaboard, next he's on the West, next he's somewhere mid between.”

“...some kind of teleporter?” Scott suggested.

“ _Oui_ , it would seem so.”

“So how do you nudge a teleporter here?” Logan asked, taking another swig of his beer. 

“Tryin' to break into his path, and shovin' him the right way.” He sighed, sitting on the edge of the couch. “Dunno if it'll work.”

“Wait, you're going to access his kinetic possibilities and _change_ them?” Scott gaped at him.

Remy shrugged. “ _Oui_.”

“...that seems extremely dangerous, entirely fool hardy, and I think, likely to end up with someone dead!” He shifted forward, looking alarmed. “ _Breaking into his kinetic possibilities_?! Remy, that would take an enormous amount of strength, it would completely drain you, and – and – Logan, tell him that's a bad idea!”

Logan frowned for a few long moments, then said, “D'you think you can do it?”

“ _Logan_!”

“ _Oui, cher._ ” Remy nodded. “Can be done.”

“That is _not_ what you were supposed to say, dammit, Logan... this is _dangerous_ , we can't lose Remy!” Scott cried, voice cracking. 

“We ain't gonna lose him, yer over dramatic.” He rolled his eyes, and sat on the couch, resting one hand on each of Remy and Scott's thighs. “Ye need us to do anything, Remy?”

“Naw. Just... hold on.”

Remy's eyes flared red, flames bursting across his iris, and then... nothing happened. He went _still_ , as still as a statue, as though he was hit by a Gorgon's curse, silent as stone. For a very long few minutes, nothing continued to happen. Honestly, it seemed like the man didn't even _breathe_. Scott chewed his lip, and shifted in his seat, restless and disliking this silence. Logan watched Remy for any slightest hint that he was moving again. 

The Cajun didn't move – but there was an abrupt explosion of sound and smoke in the room, the scent of sulphur filling the small cabin, then a man – a _blue_ man, as if that made any sense – fell on top of their coffee table, breaking it into several pieces. 

“Oh!” Scott jumped, startled. 

Logan shifted forward, catching the man before he had a chance to _bamf_ out of there again, and snapped, stay _still_.

The man looked up at him, with wide, startled yellow eyes, and twisted out of Logan's hands.

This time, it was _Remy_ who caught his leg, holding him in place. 

“Let me go,” the man gasped, in a heavily accented voice, those yellow eyes panicked.

“Not yet.” Remy said, firmly, holding him in place, his skin crackling slightly where he held him, like electricity under his fingers. “Hold on. Yer safe here. Yer gonna be fine here. Mutants protect their own.”

He looked sharply between them, then twisted out of Remy's fingers, bursting into smoke and sulphur again, and disappeared.

Remy's eyes flared again, then abruptly the stranger smashed back down onto the coffee table again.

“How are you doing zhat?!” He cried out, panicked.

Panting, now, breathless from the exertion of the strain, Remy slid off the couch, and crouched beside the man, and waited until the blue skinned stranger caught his eyes. Yellow met black and red, and his eyes widened sharply, surprised by Remy's unusual eyes. “You're not the only mutant, _mon ami_.”

“Zhey are...?” He glanced at Logan and Scott, quickly.

“Yeah.” Remy nodded. 

“...it is safe here, zhen?” He asked, frowning slightly. Now that he was sitting still, they were able to see that his face was strongly scarred, swirls and loops and whorls that made no sense except that they looked pretty, though maybe they made sense to the man himself. 

“Yes.” Remy nodded, leaning back against the couch cushions, starting to visibly relax now that it was clear the stranger wasn't going to kill them. 

Scott squirmed closer to Remy, stroking his lover's hair, quietly, trying to soothe.

“Oh.” The stranger murmured. “...vell zhen.”

\---

Her name was Raven Darkholme.

They picked her up in the valley in about 1987, and she sort of fell into their misfit little family. Unlike the Rasputin boy or Warren, though, she never ended up staying, not long term, anyway. So she was sort of an unofficial member of their clumsy little group, anyway, so Logan jokingly called her their Tinkerbell.

She would flit in and out of their lives, seemingly at random, would stay for a day or two, maybe, then would be gone just as fast.

Once Marie came along, she sort of gravitated to the girl, and they would murmur about how good it was for both of them, really – for Marie to have a mother and for Raven to have a child. She drifted in more often, once the girl settled in at Alkili Lake, but long before they found the teenager in 2001, Raven had had a different focus.

She'd been fascinated with Scott's eyes.

That is, she wanted desperately to see them. None of them had – not open, anyway. Remy had fashioned a new blindfold for him out of a piece of a butter soft leather jacket that'd been torn up in a fight, and so when he'd put it on, they'd seen his uninhibited face. Pale and vulnerable, but his eyes were definitely still closed. Every time he bathed, they saw them. Once, it had even been Logan who had swiped the washcloth over that pale face with surprising tenderness. But still none of them had seen him with his eyes open.

Remy suggested once that maybe he _couldn't_ open them. After all, his mutation was being able to see and judge angles and distances without his eyes, wasn't it?

But Raven had to know.

She'd turned into Scott, a few times, to test out theories of what he might look like – blue eyes? Green? Brown? One blue and one brown perhaps? - but Remy was never fooled into believing that Scott had suddenly just opened his eyes, and Logan said she smelled wrong.

And Raven, intent on a mystery, was an almost terrifying thing. She tried to snatch looks, but the damn boy just never seemed to open his eyes.

So she hatched a plan.

Shifting into Logan's form, she crept slowly into the room the three men shared. Scott had gone to bed earlier, claiming a headache. So Raven knew he was alone and sleeping in the dark. He was used enough to the sound of Logan moving around the room by their three years together, now, to not awaken when Raven-as-Logan walked into the room. He didn't even wake when she slowly, gently undid the buckle on his blindfold. But when she shouted his name, he _did_ bolt up – eyes flying open.

They were blue.

She saw about three-tenths of a second's worth of blue eyes, then a red beam, something like a laser but more like a nuclear warhead packed into beam form shot out of his eyes.

It punched a hole in the wall, taking out a massive chunk of the ceiling with it, before he managed to snap his eyes shut.

“What the hell was _that_?!” Logan bellowed from the door of the room.

“Are you all right, _cheri_?!” Remy gasped, shoving past their lover, darting past Raven, who had begun to shift into her own form, and scrambled up on the bed, cupping Scott's jaw. “What happened, _cher_? Tell Remy what happened.”

“I can't turn them off,” he whispered, brokenly, shoulders shaking.

“That – that – yer _eyes_ did that, _mon ange_?” Remy asked, shocked.

He nodded, jerkily. “I can't turn them off. I didn't want you to think I was a liability, I didn't want you to send me away...”

“Never, _cher_.” He tugged him forward, kissing the boy – though was he still a boy? He was finally legal now, wasn't he? Almost, anyway, if he wasn't already – firmly, trying to reassure him by touch alone. “You're never gonna be useless, _cheri_ , Remy and Logan love you, _petit.”_

“What happened?” Logan growled, again, advancing on Raven. She'd slipped back into the shadows, nearly invisible.

“I just wanted to see his eyes,” she whispered.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he snapped, baring his teeth, growling.

“But Logan,” she protested, shifting as she walked forward, until Scott stood in front of him, blue, angelic eyes open, looking up at him in reverent wonder. “Don't you want to see in my eyes for once,” she said, in Scott's voice, “When you make me scream in pleasure?”

He stabbed her.

\---

The dam was breaking. 

Scott was fighting to stay above the water, barely treading as he clutched the boy tight against his chest. The little one was clinging tightly to his shirt, mis-matched eyes wide with terror as he held on tight, shaking. He still hadn't spoken, but Scott couldn't really blame him as he swam in the dark, any of the senses he normally relied on useless against the onslaught of the water.

“Scott!”

“I'm here!” He called, again, trying to mover closer to the voice, but it was hard to figure out where exactly they were coming from. Sounds echoed endlessly, until he was dizzy from trying to figure it out.

“Cher!”

There was a splashing and hands were suddenly on his shoulders, pulling him up a little, lighening the load of the boy. “ _Mon dieu_ , _cher_ , there was fear you had drowned...”

“No, we're all right.” He said, breathlessly. “Help me with the boy. We've got to get out of here before this place fills right up.”

“Remy, you take Scott, I got the tyke,” Logan told him, firmly, taking the child out of Scott's arms, ignoring the way the child clung initially to him. But the moment he had the boy properly against his own chest, the little one's fingers clung at his shirt, eyes wide with surprise. “Okay. Let's go.”

“Why?”

All three men stopped, surprised, glancing back at the little boy curled against Logan's chest.

“What was that, _cher_?” Remy asked, surprised.

“Why” He asked again, only he wasn't asking aloud, his mouth never moved. He was asking in their minds, a shocked, echoing whisper that careened away inside their minds, knocking in their thoughts. “Why would you save me? I'm a freak.”

“Freaks stick together, kiddo,” Logan smirked.

“Come on,” Scott said gently, one arm still wrapped around Remy's shoulder, reaching out to the boy. “You can be one of the Lost Boys.”

“I can be Toodles?” He asked, in their minds.

“Sure, why not?” He grinned back. “We have to get out of here, though, Toodles. So hold on tight to Logan, we're gonna get you out of here, okay?”

The boy met his blindfold like they were his eyes, frowning slightly, then Scott cried out, bending double in the water.

“Scott!” Remy cried, horrified.

His thoughts were flicking past too fast to keep track of, some of them things he almost remembered in the fleeting glimpses he caught of them, things he was sure never could have happened in other seconds. Holding Victor's head up so that Logan could look him in the eyes, snarling. Slipping a ring onto the finger of a beautiful redheaded woman in a white dress. Waking curled between his lovers, fingers resting lightly on Logan's collarbone, Remy's hand on his hip. Slipping on a pair of heavy glasses with red lenses and grinning at a bald man in a wheelchair when he realized he could in fact see him. Flicking Remy's bo like a cane as he moved through the bushes, laughing when Marie held aloft a rabbit she'd found in one of Logan's traps. Dressing in form fitting black leather and climbing up the ramp of a sleek black jet with a woman dressed like him, but with white-as-snow hair. Faster and faster the images screamed past, then the words “Yes, you are far more interesting broken,” filled his mind.

Scott cried out as a link he hadn't even known he'd had was severed, and he slumped heavily against Remy, unconscious.

\---

The dam broke.

Water crashed towards the Blackbird and the helicopter that the Brotherhood had co-opted, but something wasn't right. Jean Grey stood on the base of the flood plains, holding out her hands, focusing her telekinetic abilities to hold the sway of the water back. It was working. It was working perfectly, but Jean didn't know that a boy with mis-matched eyes and a penchant for meddling in the minds of others had been... playing. Creating a history that didn't exist until that moment in the minds of dozens of mutants, rewriting the past and what they thought they had remembered, using his powers to force people to do things for him, like forcing Kurt to go to New Orleans to retrieve the interesting mutant he'd seen lurking in Logan's head so that he could add him to the game too, creating relationships that had never existed and abolishing others that had simply because they weren't nearly as much fun, breaking things because they were so much more interesting when they were shattered and haphazardly reformed.

And that little psychic fuck-up had snapped the connection that she had with her husband.

Jean stumbled, gasping, mind open and empty.

The water smashed down on her, sweeping over her before she had enough time to recover to get out of his way, and just like that, the telekinetic doctor was gone.

Her husband had no idea. 

Not hard, when his mind had been shattered, then shoved back together into a completely new form, and when he stumbled out of the military base with his arm over Remy LeBeau's shoulders, only seconds before the base was completely submerged, he didn't remember a wife or the Professor or living life as a teacher. New memories were forming, disjointed, in the wrong order, filling in gaps where he wasn't rescued at fourteen by a man in a wheelchair that could whisper in his minds, but by a black and red eyed man in a silk shirt that held a hand out towards him from the door of a small air plane, calling for him to climb up. He didn't marry a beautifully intelligent telepath, he fell in love with a wild man with claws and a gambler with a penchant for explosions. He was never Cyclops. He was a blind boy with a leather strip across his eyes.

“The truck is just up the ridge, c'mon, Scott, you can make it...” Remy panted as he all but carried his lover up the hill. 

“There's a woman...” he panted, glancing over his shoulder at the lake, trying to figure out why he remembered a woman standing on the stones, holding her hands out, trying to save their life. He couldn't quite figure out why he cared, or even why he cared that a sleek black jet – probably military, he figured – had been slammed into by the water, swept away and under the waves. “There was a woman...”

“So what?” Logan growled, clutching at the little boy he carried. The boy's eyes were closed, but he smiled, softly. “There are lots of women.”

“This one was different.” Scott murmured.

“Later there will be time, _cher_ ,” Remy murmured, holding Scott close, then helped him up into the truck, grabbing the crocheted blanket Marie had made years ago, now, wrapping it around his shoulders, then took the boy from Logan's arms, setting him in Scott's lap. “Careful, hold _l'enfant_. There will be time to talk, once we are free, but...” He glanced back into the back of the truck, setting his hand on the glass. “Everyone all right back there?”

Marie set her hand against the glass, eyes haunted, but smiled at him. “We're all here. Sinjean's hurt, but... we're gonna be okay.” 

Victor was holding the back doors of the truck closed, and he was the one who called, “Get us the fuck out of here, Logan!”

Logan smirked, cranking the engine of the truck on.

“Good, _chameau_.” He glanced at Logan. Had Marie always had that white streak in her hair? Had Logan always been wearing that strange black leather suit? “Drive to somewhere safe, won't you, _cher_?”

“We'll find something,” he nodded, and slammed on the gas, and their little covered pick up truck rattled down the road, bouncing those hunkered down in the back, and making Scott cling a little tighter to the boy in his lap, eyes dark and haunted as memories of the last fifteen years filtered slowly through his thoughts, not quite _right_ , not quite accurate. But they made... _sense,_ somehow. 

The boy in his lap smiled, curling a little closer to Scott, very satisfied.

Broken minds were so much more fun to play in.


End file.
